Cat's Claw (A Pecan Springs Mystery)

mailboxes a couple of miles later. Down that gravel road another mile or so, you’ll see a sign for Paint HorseRanch. That’s it, although it hasn’t been used for actual ranching for fifty years or so.” He sat back in his chair. “It belonged in the family, all twelve hundred acres of it, going back two or three generations. Timms inherited it from his older brother, minus the disputed chunk, which is a bluff with a spectacular view. That’s the piece that the neighbor adversely possessed, during the years when Timms’ brother had the property. The brother lived in Houston, Timms said, and never paid any attention to the land.”
    As I remembered the professor’s lecture on this subject, that was the way adverse possession usually happened. Land was passed along in a family, the property wasn’t used, perhaps not even visited, and pieces of it were appropriated by other people—usually the neighbors.
    “But Timms was making the best of it,” McQuaid said. “Last time I was out there, he had just finished building a cabin on Paint Horse Creek, where he could throw parties.” He chuckled wryly. “A cabin. That’s what he called it. To me, it looked like a fancy bachelor pad, with plenty of parking, a couple of guesthouses for overnighters, and no neighbors to get pissed off when his friends are drinking and the music’s too loud. Kind of a secret getaway, where he could hide out from his ex-wives. Not my style, but it fits good old George.” He pushed back his chair, stood, and stretched.
    “Hmm,” I said, frowning. “I wonder if Charlie thought to have a look out there. Maybe Timms—”
    McQuaid interrupted. “Did you remember that I’m going to El Paso tomorrow?” He picked up the empty Saint Arnold bottle and dropped it into the recycle bin. “Blackie’s already out there. I talked to him on the phone earlier this evening.” He went to the back door and checked the lock. “He’s got a couple of good leads, although it looks like we’ll have to cross over to Ciudad Juárez.”
    “That’s the missing boy?” I asked. I wasn’t thrilled at the thought that McQuaid and Blackie might go into Mexico. Juárez is especially dangerous territory. The drug cartels own the city, and scores of young women factory workers have been murdered there. But I had seen the boy’s picture on Austin television. The little guy was only seven, with dark hair and flashing brown eyes in a delicate face. He’d been gone for over a week. The custodial parent, a single father, was desperate. He had come to McQuaid for help in getting his son back. It was a case that tugged at our hearts, McQuaid’s and mine. Brian had been taken by his mother once, without permission or notice. He was gone for only a few hours and no harm was done, but the experience had been harrowing. I knew how the little boy’s father must feel.
    McQuaid nodded. “The mother apparently took him from school. She has family south of Juárez.” He came close, dropping his face to nuzzle my throat. “Will you miss me, wife?”
    “I miss you already,” I said truthfully, and my arms went around his neck. I didn’t say so out loud, but I didn’t want him to go. Not this time. Not to Juárez.
    “Prove it,” he whispered against my cheek, after a minute. He took my hand, his voice softly urgent. “Come on, babe. Let’s go to bed.”
    I didn’t need to be asked twice. We locked the doors, turned off the downstairs lights, and climbed the stairs. But just as McQuaid was pulling my T-shirt over my head, the phone in our bedroom rang.
    “Rats,” I said eloquently.
    McQuaid dropped my shirt on the floor and began unfastening my bra. “Let it ring, China.”
    I thought of what had happened that afternoon, and shook my head. “It’ll just take a minute,” I said, reaching for the phone. “Might be important.”
    McQuaid growled between his teeth and pulled off my bra, brushing his hands across my breasts.
    It was Ruby. “Sorry to bother you, China,” she said tersely, “but Ramona and I just thought of something. Larry Kirk did
not
kill himself.”
    “How do you know?” I sat down on the bed and listened, but McQuaid was beginning to strip, so I have to admit that I was a little distracted. My husband has a terrific body, lean and muscular, and I enjoy looking at him—especially when he’s not wearing clothes.
    But what Ruby had to tell me was pretty urgent, persuasive, too. When she finished, I thought I’d better